Submission Guidelines

Etopia Press is currently looking for the best, most unique, most well-crafted romance and erotic romance — and we know they’re out there. There’s no limit to where a writer’s imagination can go when he or she is inspired, and there’s always a reader who wants to go along for the ride.

We’re a royalty-paying publisher. We are not a vanity press or a self-publishing service. We provide complete, professional editing and cover design by some of the best editors and artists in the business, as well as wide distribution through all major retailers, review coordination, and marketing support. We pay 40% royalties on e-books, and all books over 45,000 words in all genres are released in both e-book and print formats. Shorter works may be considered for inclusion in e-book and print anthologies.

We Now Offer an Advance on Romance and Erotic Romance!

We’re happy to announce that we now offer an advance on royalties of $250 to $1000 for erotic romance and $100 to $500 for traditional (i.e. non-erotic) romance over 50,000 words. Offers will be made on an individual basis at the time of contract. Shorter works may be considered for an advance based on the author’s publishing history and other factors.

What We Won’t Publish

Porn (erotica and erotic romance are not “porn”).

Rape for titillation (exploring it for literary reasons is OK. This isn’t the same as capture fantasy or dubious consent in romance. If you’re not sure what the difference is, please query us).

Erotica or erotic romance involving sex with characters under the age of 18, pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, or “bodily functions for sport.” All characters in romance and erotic romance must be sentient beings (even if they’re shape-shifters, vampires, or aliens).

Racial or gender intolerance, hatred, bigotry, etc. (where it’s presented as a good thing or your social ideal. Stories “about” racism or other social issues, or featuring evil, well-written antagonists, are welcome and encouraged). If you’re not sure what the difference is, please query us.

For more information on the specific requirements of our various romance lines, please see our Romance Lines page.

For the kinds of books we’re most interested in at any given time, please see our Submission Calls page.

A Note on Fan Fiction

Please don’t send us stories based on your favorite TV shows, movies, books, anime, manga, video games, etc. Fan fiction can be a great way to connect with other fans and keep your favorite worlds alive, but we can’t publish it. Changing the names of characters isn’t enough to qualify the story as an “original work.”

Previously Published vs. Self-published Work

We prefer to publish new, unpublished works; however, we’re happy to consider reprint submissions of works which have been previously published by professional, royalty-paying publishers. If you’re looking for a new home for work that was previously published by another publisher, please note this in your cover letter and give us a brief description of the book’s publishing history. If we accept it, we’ll ask you to provide your reversion of rights letter from the previous publisher.

Due to the high volume of self-published submissions we received over the last year, which proved mostly unsuitable for us, we regret that we can no longer consider previously or currently self-published work.

Simultaneous Submissions

We understand that it makes no sense having your work spend years going around from one publisher to the next getting old and losing its timeliness. Simultaneous submissions are perfectly acceptable. If you accept a contract elsewhere, congratulations! After you celebrate, please remember to be courteous and jot a quick note to the other publishers considering your book and withdraw your sumbission.

How to Format Your Submission and Where to Send It

*** A Note on Our Submission Guidelines***

Please follow these guidelines carefully when submitting to us. We work completely electronicly and have different requirements than “traditional” publishers. We have specific requests that make it easier for us to log and process submissions before we read them. A perfectly formatted submission, with everything we need right where we need it, is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. A perfectly formatted submission says all kinds of positive things about the book and the author. It excites us and makes us eager to start reading. And it moves your book to the top of the to-be-read pile. ’Nuff said.

Your submission should include three things a cover letter, short synopsis (for 10,000 words and over), and the complete manuscript, formatted like this:

1. A standard submission cover letter in the body of your email.

Start the email by writing your contact information in the top left corner. Include:

In your letter, include your web or blog URL and any social media accounts you use so we can look you up.

Also include any publication credits you may have. If you’re a new author and don’t have any yet, that’s OK too. We all start somewhere.

And don’t forget the most important part-that short blurb that will pique our interest and make us eager to read more. Or at least give us your best attempt. We’ll still read your manuscript even if the blurb isn’t perfect.

2. Complete manuscript, attached as an .RTF file

PLEASE USE ONLY Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1.5 or double spacing. Seriously. Yes, this means you. Please do not use elaborate styles, different fonts, different colors, fancy typesetting, inserted graphics, master document outline formats, etc. You’re not laying out your book for print; this is just a manuscript. Adding all that stuff is like showing up for a job interview in a Halloween costume.

No headers or footers. We don’t want your name and title at the top or the page numbers.

No page breaks anywhere.

Please no “block business letter” style. That is, no blank lines between one paragraph and the next. Some later versions of Word insert them as default. They can be removed in the paragraph menu. Please see your help files for more information.

In the top left-hand corner of the first page only–not every page–please include the following (and note it’s less than what we need on the cover letter email):

Title

Pen Name

Email address

Genre/Subgenres (if there are several subgenres, list them all)

Exact Word Count According to MS Word (not an estimate)

Please do not include your personal information such as real name, address, or phone number here. We only want that on the cover letter.

Below these five lines of contact information, drop down three blank lines and start Chapter One (or Prologue, or the text of a short story with no chapters).

3. Short synopsis (2 or 3 pages for novel length works, 1 to 2 pages or so for works over about 10,000 words through novella length.). No synopsis is required for short stories. Please format the synopsis the same as the manuscript, with the same contact information as the manuscript at the top , and attach it as an .RTF file.

We accept email submissions only. Email them to submissions AT etopia-press DOT net

Response Time

We’ll send you an autoreply just so you know we’ve received your submission. These autoreplies often get caught in spam filters, so if you don’t get one, send us another email to let us know, and we’ll manually confirm receipt of your submission.

After that, our response time is about four weeks. Sometimes it’s shorter, sometimes it’s a little longer. Our read times depend on the number of editors we have handling that genre, our editors’ fluxuating workloads, and the current needs of our various lists–and whether you followed our submission guidelines :-). Please wait eight weeks before querying us for status.

Questions?

Email us at help@etopia-press.net and ask. We’re happy to help. And we can’t wait to read your work!